Premal Shah, Director - Glass Industry Coordinator (India & Sri Lanka), Compete Tools, and Guerric de Halleux, Sales Industry Coordinator, MAC Valves Europe Inc, in an interaction with Karthik Muthuveeran during Glasspex, Mumbai. Excerpts from the interview...

What is the collaboration of Compete Tools Pvt Ltd and MAC Valves Europe Inc?

Premal Shah (PS): Compete Tools is now a second generation business, started by my father and uncle. We started with pneumatic products business and were looking for some quality products with technical edge and came across MAC about 12 years ago. Valves are not an easy product to sell. MAC valves are high-priced and very high on quality, so we started selling it as concept rather than products. They are specialised valves for specific industries where there is high temperature, dust, etc. We have a lot of internal patents in valves.

MAC has been in business for more than 60 years. It is the only company in pneumatics that manufactures only valves. MAC has some specialised tools like animation, with the help of which we can convince the customer how MAC is better. We have fabricated live demonstration kits and this is how we do concept selling. Our focus is on glass, tyres and cement industries. MAC has been active in glass for more than 25 years. Glasspex exhibition caters mostly to the glass industry, and this is why we are here.

How do you look at the market for your products in India?

Guerric de Halleux (GDH): For the moment, our market share in India is not so big and that is why we have collaborated with Compete Tools. USA and Europe are our bigger markets. Our focus is, of course, to increase our market share in India. It is not at all easy as all our competitors have plants in India and they are producing locally. They have the advantage of low price. But I think the big advantage MAC has is the technology. We are focusing only on valves and we try to give the best support to the customer, thanks to our distributors.

PS: Indian market is very competitive and very price sensitive. But on the other hand, Indian market is also in need of high quality, specialised products, which reduce the downtime of machines.

India, for us, is divided into two parts: price sensitive and quality. MAC concentrates of discerning customers. I think we have the products where we can really tackle downtime and make life easy for the end users.

What about valves from China, which are cheaper - how do you react to this competition? What differentiates your products with the competitors?

GDH: We can see a lot of Chinese products trying to compete with MAC Valves, but we have a lot of patents for valves. Customers using Chinese products cannot achieve the same result because of the technology. Our valve has totally different technology. We try to sell the concept, technology and performance, unlike the Chinese who sell products and compete merely on price.

PS: We are not at all afraid of the Chinese products coming to India. We have valves in the industry, which are working for more than five years. Our valves are proven and tested, and provide the desired quality.

What are the various ranges of products offered by MAC?

GDH: As mentioned before, MAC has only pneumatic valves. Unlike other companies, we do not offer cylinders, tubing and fittings, our focus is only on pneumatic valves. Of course, if a customer is looking at the entire system, our distributor Compete Tools takes care of those requirements as well.

How has Compete Tools evolved over the years?

PS: Compete Tools started as a trading company with agency business. Our first agency was for Bradma of India Ltd and we were their only distributor in India. They were into products for chassis marking, number marking, etc. Then we started understanding the Indian market. We came to know that we need concept selling and other options, because in the market there are hundreds of sellers who can provide anything. We thought of getting out of the products business and venture into concept selling.

We started concentrating on specific concepts like automobiles, pharmaceutical, glass, cement, tyres, etc., giving them solutions. We have a good engineering team, and our engineers are technically trained. We are also getting into robotics through one of the sister concerns of MAC. India still has a lot of second hand machinery. But I think there will be soon a day when India will evolve as a major player for engineering, automation, robotics, etc., in the next couple of years.

Can you explain more about your robotics collaboration?

PS: MAC also has a sister concern company called PHD Inc. While MAC only makes pneumatic valves, PHD Inc manufactures other pneumatic products like grippers, cylinders, clamps, rotary actuators, slides, escapements, multi-motions actuators, switches, etc. They provide unique solutions for automation and automotive industries and have a huge range for the robotics and automation applications. The combination of MAC and PHD Inc is providing a fresh vista to our existing customers as well as new ones. A lot of multinational players in India are already aware of the products from MAC/PHD, which is an advantage to us, making it easy to promote these products. So the combination of MAC with the latest entrant PHD, I think, is going to be a major advantage.

You said that market share for MAC products is very less in India. Which are your stronger markets?

GDH: India is a new market for MAC. We are a leader in the US. We have a very good position in Europe and we are trying to get more market share in India. Though presently we have a small share, with every passing year we are becoming better known in India.

What about these products that you have displayed at here at Glasspex exhibition?

PS: The products that we have displayed here are all used on sophisticated machines used in glass industry. All these products are used on machines that produce a vast array of bottles in different shapes and sizes.

The glass industry is very demanding and cannot afford downtime. We ensure prompt service in the shortest possible time. These high-end machines are highly automated using lot of pneumatic valves, complete valve blocks. We have products, which are working for more than 5 years without any problem in some companies. The maintenance guys have less of issues working with our products.

What are the challenges faced in the business?

GDH: The main challenge is the competition in terms of price. We have high-priced products. But these are of very good quality as compared to those other products priced cheaper. When we approach a potential customer, we go that extra mile and first understand their exact requirements in terms of production, the product they are manufacturing, and then explain them the process and advantages of using our products. The biggest advantage of MAC is their technical support. If there is any problem, we try to visit them and try solving the problem at their end. We do special development for some customers and provide special solutions only for them. We have a lot of specialised tailor-made solutions, which is our biggest advantage. This is why our product is a bit more expensive than the competition.

PS: Glass industry is such an industry that the concerned people are hardly available for talks as they are always busy taking care of the machines. So getting an appointment with the right customer at the right time is one of the biggest problems. To make them understand the concept, the philosophy, it has to be a right guy from our end and a right guy from their end. We also think about the budget approved. It almost takes a year or so to get an entry in the factory. The time duration is a mixture of everything. The glass industry is a like very small family. It took us a long time to get into this industry.

But once we got the approval in one glass unit, to replicate that in other units was relatively easy, as thanks to the close knit structure, every person in one company knows every person in the other company and the word spreads.

What about the policies of the present government?

PS: The new government is trying to boost the business sentiment and that needs some time. We were expecting many things from the budget and not everything is to the liking, but hope the next budget will address these issues.

The progress on GST is welcome. As a corporate we are very happy to come out of the multiple taxation regime and get a single window for taxation. GST is welcome move. But the new government needs some time to make a difference.